New RNZAF boss aims to boost moral

The air force's new boss has made it one of his first jobs to restore the service's flagging morale after the Government dumped its fighter wing last year.

Air Vice-Marshal John Hamilton, who took over last month as chief of air staff from Air Vice-marshal Don Hamilton said the axing of the Skyhawk attack fighters and the Aermacchi jet trainers, felt "like a blow at the bottom of the ruck".
"But life in the RNZAF goes on and I firmly believe that that life is worth living," said AVM Hamilton, a 31-year veteran of the air force.

AVM Hamilton, who took over his new job at the top of the air force last month, said in the latest issue of Air Force News it was a critical part of his new role to show the organisation was "very much alive both in body and in spirit and that there is a bright future on the horizon".

The air force will eventually lose about 700 highly trained fighter pilots, ground crew and support staff as a result of the dumping of the Skyhawks and the Aermacchis.

Air force morale plummeted after May 8 last year when the Government announced the air combat wing would be disbanded. The last Skyhawk flight was in December.

Many air force personnel felt that without the elite air combat wing the potential for career advancement had been severely curtailed.

AVM Hamilton said he asked all his senior executives together to "take stock of where we are as an organisation, to think about where we want to be and to come up with the paths that will get us there".

He said he had already told them about the need to re-generate trust, re-establish unity within the air force, to progress development and to continue to promote operational effectiveness.

- NZPA